Conspirator

by C. J. Cherryh

  “He will learn weapons,” Banichi said. “And hunting.”

  Guns. And the other items of mayhem in the Guild’s repertoire. The boy already knew about detonators and wires. Knew about bombs and had seen things no eight-year-old ought to have seen.

  “Not too soon,” he said sadly. “Not too soon, Banichi. His aishid is going to have to go off to train. That will be a hard time for him, when Antaro and Jegari go to the Guild.”

  As they were already beginning to do, to become security for a boy who would be aiji—with very serious threats to deal with.

  “Will those two do all right in that, do you think?” he asked, on the opportunity. “Do you think them apt, after this escapade with the train?”

  “They have excellent background,” Banichi said, and, as they reached the study door: “We have had a serious talk,” Banichi said. “If you will, we can take them in hand—and not neglect the paidhi’s security. They are trustworthy, to let within the perimeter. Jago concurs. So do Tano and Algini. We think there are possibilities in these two.”

  Of very, very few individuals would his security say that, he was sure.

  “Would working with them take you away?” he asked, when he had opened the door and brought them into his study.

  “No, Bren-ji. It would let the youngsters stay closer to the Bujavid, closer to the paidhi-aiji, as it happens. With the boy. We may be able to persuade his father.”

  He’d missed Cajeiri. Broken pots and all, he enjoyed the company.

  “Tabini-aiji said,” said Banichi, “that he came very close to death, this last year. He said that you and the heir might need the closeness of mind you gained with him on the ship, that it might serve you well. The boy has needed time to be atevi: he has needed to develop the instincts—the proper sense of being what he is. But, Tabini-aiji has said, this was never intended to sever you from the heir . . . should anything befall himself.”

  He was a little shocked. Greatly sobered. Grim thought, and profoundly affecting, that the aiji had expressed that intention to his aishid.

  “One has regretted the heir’s absence,” Bren said earnestly. “One has regretted it extremely.”

  “Your staff knows that,” Banichi said, with an uncommon intensity.

  “What do you think, ’Nichi-ji?” Man’chi, that instinct to group together, that bond that held a household together in crisis, was as profound to atevi as love was to humans. Say that atevi didn’t love. Didn’t feel friendship. That was true. What they did feel was as powerful, as intense. And emotionally-based. “Do you agree with this notion? Does it disrupt us? Does it affect man’chi?”

  Banichi had shepherded the young rascal aboard ship. Banichi had built the cars with him. Banichi had guarded the aiji’s son; and Banichi had been in Tabini’s own aishid, once. So had Jago. Now they were in the paidhi’s man’chi, together with Tano and Algini, who had come to them from a slightly more esoteric attachment—the Assassins’ Guild itself.

  And did potentially having the boy and his household tangled in theirs—somehow disturb the equation?

  “We would not accept it,” Banichi said, the four-foldplus-one we of the aishid itself. “We would never accept it, Bren-ji, if there was any possibility it would affect our man’chi to you.”

  Bren bowed his head, deep appreciation, with a little tightness in his throat. “One is quite emotionally affected by that declaration, Banichi. You should know that.”

  “One is still not a salad,” Banichi said wickedly, and made him laugh—old joke. Old, old joke, between them, from their first try at straightening out that particular question. He’d nailed it down a little better since. They both felt keenly what they did feel. The gulf was still there. One didn’t ask the other to be what he wasn’t, or, to a certain extent, to do what he couldn’t. Banichi and Jago had been ever so frustrated with him on one notable occasion, when their charge had risked his neck trying to protect his bodyguard.

  He still would, if it came to that. It frustrated all of them that he had that contrary instinct; but they knew, if push came to shove and he panicked, he’d behave in a very crazy way. They just planned on it; and he tried not to.

  Idiot, Banichi might as well have said; and he’d say, That’s what you have to work with, ’Nichi-ji.

  It turned out to have been a good thing he’d sent two men with Barb and Ikaro. Barb had restocked the Brighter Days’ galley with about a hundred kilos worth of foodstuffs, bought a very, very fine knife for Toby, and a complete atevi child’s dinner gown and coat for herself. She came back down the main hall in a froth of high spirits, while Ikaro privately came to Bren in the study doorway and presented the bills with deep and mortified bows.

  “She is the associate of the aikaso’aikasi-najawii of my house,” he assured the young woman: that mouthful was to say, the companion of my sib of the same mother and the same father. “And by no means will the estate bear this expense on its books. I shall, as a gift to my brother. Tell Ramaso I wish to speak with him, and by no means be in the least distressed, nadi-ji. I am not, in the least.”

  That was somewhat of an untruth. Ikaro was upset, and on no few levels—distressed that she had not been given the power to restrain Barb, distressed that she had had to worry all afternoon about his reaction, distressed now that the paidhi had possibly been put into a financial position and been finagled into restocking his brother’s boat, distressed that the paidhi was now going to have to talk to Ramaso to straighten things out, and distressed that she might not be kindly dealt with in that discussion. He tried to reassure her. He hoped that Ikaro might confide in him anything she felt she needed to confide regarding the event, if there was, say, more than a hundred kilos of goods, a knife, and a dinner gown involved.

  Yes. There was.

  When he said, “One hopes that my brother’s lady was circumspect, nadi-ji,” and Ikaro did not look at him eye to eye, but bowed very low indeed, that was a warning.

  “She was not circumspect,” he surmised.

  Intense embarrassment. Another deep bow, still without looking at him. “It was surely a misunderstanding, nandi. One failed to convey.”

  “What happened?”

  Hesitation. “She wished to purchase a ninth-year gown.”

  He didn’t know what to say for a moment. A child’s coming-to-notice. Officially. And they were handmade, a costly centerpiece of a family celebration. “One is certain she had no notion that it was a festival gown,” he said.

  “Indeed,” Ikaro said, not looking at him.

  “Surely—she did not succeed in this purchase.”

  “No, nandi. One believes she understood there was a problem.” A bow. “One could not adequately interpret.”

  “Possibly the paidhi-aiji could not have adequately interpreted.” He constructed the scene in his mind, the maids, the men, the townsfolk, and Barb, unable to communicate. The gown in question—the gown would have been made for a specific young lady who would have been, yes, Barb’s size. But the special-made gown now had been the subject of an argument—exceeding bad luck for the impending birthday—and Barb had offered more money, a suggestion which Ikaro had not dared translate.

  “One understands,” he said. “You did your best, Ikaro. One will manage the matter. Please call Ramaso. And thank you. You have done everything you could have done.”

  Besides flinging herself bodily on Barb and pulling her out of the shop.

  God!

  “One believes it might be best to replace the gown,” he said when Ramaso had come in and heard the matter. “May the paidhi do so, at his expense?”

  “That would be extremely gracious of the paidhi,” the old man said. “The event is for spring. There is time.”

  “The paidhi might favor the young girl with a festivity in the estate on the auspicious day—might we not?”

  “Indeed,” the old man said. “Indeed. That would be most generous.”

  “Do I know the girl?”

  “She is the sailma
ker’s daughter.”

  “Egien? Then the paidhi will be extremely delighted to offer the event the hospitality of his house if they will take it.”

  “One will send that message immediately, if the paidhi will write.”

  Before the ill omen of the criticism of the little girl’s gown reached the couple. It had already distressed the tailor, who must be wondering what he could do.

  So he wrote two letters, one to the tailor: The paidhi has learned of a misunderstanding in the village this morning in your establishment. Please accept the apologies of the paidhi-aiji for the difficulty. The paidhi wishes to gift the child with a new gown of the best materials in your stock, and has every confidence in your skill to accomplish this in a timely way. Please bill the paidhi directly, courtesy of the estate, and please add the cost of the discarded gown to the bill. It is my gift to the family.

  Then he wrote to Egien-nadi: This morning, the paidhi has learned with great joy of the impending felicity: the paidhi has been extremely distressed to understand that a misunderstanding in the shop has compromised the tailor’s work for this happy event. This accident must not compromise the omens of the occasion. It is the paidhi’s wish to have the happiest of events for this child, the daughter of a skilled craftsman who is an asset to the village.

  Accordingly he wishes, as Lord of Najida, and in gratitude for the work of your house, to offer an ensemble of the finest work. He offers his estate’s hospitality with a dinner and celebration for all the guests on the festive day . . .

  That would be the whole village.

  . . . Please accept this gesture with the paidhi’s personal wishes for felicity and prosperity.

  Barb’s tab for the morning had run to, oh, a considerable figure. The ensemble Barb had admired would have to be burned, and a new gown made, to purge the taint of envy and criticism from the child. For the rest, he’d meant to offer Toby fuel and resupply, he wasn’t sorry to have Toby have the knife, and if Barb’s new atevi clothes, the clothes she’d actually bought in that shop, pleased the pair of them . . . well, good, he thought. Worse could have happened. The girl would have the birthday of her dreams, the village would be happy: over all it added up to felicity, and that, on the most superstitious of occasions, the entry of a child onto the fringe of adult society, was the important thing.

  So when it came to supper, he even fell into the spirit of the occasion by kitting Toby up in one of his less formal coats—the trousers were impossible—and the shirt and coat were a close call: Toby was a little stouter below, and his seafaring life had given him a greater breadth of shoulder than one gained sitting at a desk, never mind the exercise the paidhi attempted to take.

  “I swear I’m going to have it in the soup,” Toby said, apprehensive of the lace cuffs. “Bren, God knows what Barb’s outfit cost this morning. I don’t want to ruin a shirt for you.”

  “I’ve spilled a little soup in my career,” Bren said. The two of them were in his bedroom, with Koharu and Supani standing by to adjust the coat. “You use the wrist, turn the hand and lift when you reach for your wineglass—drop the fingers, pick up the glass. Keeps the lace right out of the soup bowl. I’m not kidding.”

  “Turn and lift, huh?” Toby gave it a try. The lace wrapped onto his wrist in a decently elegant gesture. “Hmn.”

  “Works as a gesture, too, just the half-reach. If you really want the water goblet and can’t safely cross the territory, wait till the servant takes the soup bowl out of the path: he’ll notice your signal. Nobility has some sacrifices.”

  “It’s an incredible life.”

  “Honestly, I don’t even think about it. I just keep my cuffs out of the soup.”

  Toby laughed. “Never that successfully . . . figuratively speaking. You’re always in it.”

  He laughed, at the same joke, for once. “Still, I try. Shall we see if the maids have gotten Barb into that outfit?”

  “I’ll check,” Toby said. “You go find the royal youngster, why don’t you?”

  “No smoke has risen,” he said. “And there’s been no further sound of breakage. I’m fairly sure my bodyguard has been able to keep up with him.”

  He sent a manservant to advise Banichi and the youngsters, wherever found, that supper was in the offing, and dropped by to consult Jago and Tano and Algini, who had been resting in quarters, playing dice, and actually enjoying themselves.

  Deep breath. Calm. Everything was handled. He didn’t tell Jago about the ninth-year ensemble. Not on so pleasant an evening. He just met Banichi and the youngsters near the door, advised the youngsters to wash up, and looked forward to what the major domo informed him was a very extravagant effort from the kitchen.

  Well, so, they would have all five courses, and helpings on an atevi scale. Time to pace oneself, or be sorry. And the lord of the place was obliged to be last to table—but he paced that, too, and contrived, with Jago and Banichi, to get himself into the dining room and settled into the conversation before Cajeiri and Toby had gotten much beyond, “You look great, nand’ Toby, Barb-daja!”

  Barb got to preen in her new clothes. She had gotten herself a sea-green dinner ensemble with gold beading. It was, to be sure, styled for a slightly built child, with a high neck—and the sea-green outfit was really quite becoming to her slight figure, with its wide belt, gold embellishment, and a long scarf trailing just a little onto the floor—adjustment would still have been indicated. But there it was. He’d lent Toby a beige informal coat with velvet same-shade collar and, of course, the shirt and lace. Toby had on his best brown corduroys and a pair of boots in good polish, and actually looked quite the figure in it, as long as he didn’t reach and split a seam. The youngsters were duly impressed, and consequently put on their party manners—though for this household meal, Antaro and Jegari ate at table, in their best.

  So did Banichi and Jago and Tano and Algini, with no visible weaponry. It was relaxed, Cajeiri’s youth and rank kept the conversation moderately modest. Everybody smiled, everybody appreciated the cook’s efforts and praised the meal properly, Barb didn’t lean on Toby’s shoulder at table, Toby managed not to drag his cuffs through the soup—actually managed the cuffs with a bit of flair, and the youngsters didn’t drop anything on the tablecloth.

  It was splendid, all in all . . . given the start to the day.

  “It could have been worse,” he said, finally relating the whole ninth-year ensemble problem to Jago, after hours, in bed.

  A moment of silence ensued, Jago with her head on the other pillow, facing him in the darkness. Then:

  “Bren-ji, this woman is a scandal.”

  “She will be gone in a few days.”

  “And then a birthday party! When are you to get any work done?”

  He sighed, heaving upward on one elbow with Jago’s hand on his ribs. “I shall manage, Jago-ji. And by the day of the event, we shall be back in the capital, one is quite sure. There are far worse things. Far worse things. Toby and I spoke quietly and one believes we have settled some matters between us that were far more troublesome for the future.”

  Jago rose up on an elbow. “Should your staff know these things?”

  “Old matters. Things you do know, Jago-ji. I left on our voyage at a very unfortunate time for Toby and his household, with my mother ill. This was a potential cause of great resentment. We spoke. That was why I sent Barb to the village—to have the chance to speak to him privately. The feeling is very much better between us now. The situation with Barb—well, Barb is Barb.”

  Jago said not a thing. He moved his hand on Jago’s bare shoulder.

  “The tension will be better in the morning,” he said, “on the boat. Everybody will be busy, and there will be ample distraction. You may even see Toby happy. And if he is happy, one believes Barb will behave better.”

  Barb and the youngsters alike would be surrounded by uncrossable water, he was thinking. Both Barb and the youngsters would be in a very good mood—the latter all bright-eyed and earnestly wel
l-behaved. And confined to the deck.

  “Come here,” he said, gathering her close. “Forget about it, Jago-ji. Tomorrow we sail out of reach of shops.”

  Morning came at a leisurely pace. Jago got up, he did, Jago dressed herself and Koharu and Supani came to dress him after Jago had gone wherever Jago intended to go. None of the rest of the household was awake, except staff. And it was safe here, safe as the Bujavid never was, so he asked for his coat and walked out into the brown, dead garden to take a turn out there, watching the sun come up. The maidservant trailed him: he sent her for tea, and enjoyed a cup. Steam from it curled up into the light of dawn.

  Then the rest of the house began to stir—so the servant advised him, and he came back in, invigorated and ready for breakfast—which he shared with Toby and Barb alone until the youngsters came racketing into the dining room, all bright-eyed and anxious.

  They settled rapidly and were served their breakfasts. Cajeiri was being so, so good, not asking when they would go to the boat, not asking a thing, and being very elegant with his table manners: Cajeiri and the two Taibeni youngsters wore clearly second-best coats, their roughest clothes probably cleaned by now, for the trip, after their riding the whole way here on boxes of canned goods.

  “What will be our schedule?” Toby asked him finally, prompting Cajeiri’s immediate attention. “Shall we be out and away directly after breakfast?”

  “I think so,” Bren was in the process of saying when a servant slipped up to him and said, quietly. “There is a call from Mospheira, nandi. Your staff cannot make out the name, but it seems to regard nand’ Toby. And the caller is a woman who seems distressed and who asks for you.”

  “A woman.” He was a little bemused . . . until Barb threw down her napkin and left the table without an excuse, and Toby leapt up and went after her.